Saturday, January 29, 2011

Foreign Aid: Prosperity (for a few) and Population Control!

So I've been mostly posting other people's stuff instead of my own, lately...  That may be a good thing, even if I'm just about the only one who ever reads this blog. 

If anyone else out there's looking in, keep in mind that people I quote and/or admire are in no way tinged by or responsible for my sometimes 'way to the Left, sometimes 'way to the Right, sometime Just Waaay Out rants and ruminations.

A relative sometimes writes into FrumForum, so I've been reading it 'frum' time to time, and found
http://www.talkradiosucks.com/
Much good stuff.  Try this:
http://talkradiosucks.com/2011/01/28/responding-to-guardiano-again-this-time-on-foreign-aid/#comment-111
To which I responded (at this time, I don't know if I'll be Comment Approved, so, what the heck:)

Superb article! One of the first things to get me into ‘conspiracy theories’ (still non-doctrinaire and on the amused sidelines) was finding out – barely teen and several decades ago – that FOREIGN AID was largely MILITARY aid, and we were giving to both sides of most local conflicts.


Our taxes pay for it – oh, but nothing creates jobs like a military-industrial complex: Just close your eyes and ignore that it’s blood trickling down to feed our souls … Still thirsty? Maybe it’s because those jobs at home are necessarily done by aliens since everybody (in the media, the [R]COCs and [D]demagogocracy) knows that Americans Won’t Work. ‘Proof’: Cheney (‘Bush’) wanted to give over the security of our ports to the sheiks, and Bam wanted to give our airport security to an Israeli company. Or maybe it’s because we so often Just Send Money so that our wannabe combat-ready little buddies in both sides can buy from ‘centrist’ Frenchies & Swedes, or from the ex-Soviet scavenged yard sale, or go all Hooray for Global Free Marketing Make Their* Own.

WHO PROFITS? Not me. If only we could reboot the political conversation in this country with the common assent that All Contracts with Government Are Socialism ~ So let’s only allow those which reallyreallyreally provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare: ‘Common’ and ‘general’ meaning EVERY citizen, and understanding that the quintessence of defense and welfare is the freedom of not getting our lives and worth ground up in the insatiable jaws of war.

*via scientists educated at Cal Tech, MIT, UCLA…

1 comment:

  1. Caltech professor Egypt's next president? Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail's role in an uncertain Egypt
    - Whittier Daily News http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_17299206?source=rss#ixzz1D72frCDg

    By Beige Luciano-Adams, Staff Writer
    Posted: 02/04/2011 08:28:20 PM PST
    snips:
    PASADENA - Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Laureate and distinguished professor at the California Institute of Technology, has not officially declared any personal political ambitions for a post-Mubarak Egypt - at least not yet.

    But that isn't keeping people from hoping.

    Zewail, 64, a resident of San Marino, arrived in Cairo on Wednesday, one of an emerging council of advisers working to dislodge embattled president Hosni Mubarak and guide the transition to a new, democratic government.

    Widely respected in the U.S. and abroad, Zewail - who serves on President Obama's council on science and technology and as his first science envoy to the Middle East - is a celebrated native son in Egypt.

    Zewail came to the U.S. from Egypt as a doctoral student in the 1970s, but travels back frequently, according to his wife, Dema Zewail, who said the historic uprising that swept his home country in late January just happened to coincide with a previously scheduled trip.

    "It would be wonderful to contemplate someone with the integrity of Zewail playing a major role, but the reality is that it's very hard for me to imagine something like that happening."

    Others are still less optimistic.

    Elie Chalala, editor of Al Jadid Magazine and associate adjunct professor of political science at Santa Monica College specializing in Mid-East politics, describes Zewail as a peripheral player who is acting on patriotic duty, trying to use a moral appeal to pressure Mubarak out of office.

    "But if Obama doesn't have a weight with Mubarak, do you think Zewail will?" Chalala asked, pointing out that the Egyptian military leaders, who enjoy a very lucrative relationship with the U.S. - Obama has taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward Mubarak - would be far more likely to sway the dictator.

    "If anyone has a weight with Mubarak, it's (Egyptian minister of defense Mohamed) Tantawi and the military - they're making millions of dollars," he said. "Mubarak is not the kind of guy to be morally convinced by a Nobel laureate or a scientist."

    Brand doesn't count Zewail out of some kind of role in Egypt's future government - "maybe he'll be put in charge of a ministry of human rights" - but knows the limits of Egypt's ossified political landscape.

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